firecat69

Peter this was my last sentence on the subject try to digest it. "You are wrong from the reports I saw initially. I may be wrong from the reports you saw" Fact you were wrong from the reports I saw initially. You did not see what I saw so please don't presume you did. That does not make you wrong later on when more reports have come out . Then I said I may be wrong from the reports you saw. Is that not plain enough for you . I did not sit in front of my tv set for hours or bother digesting all the news that has come out in the days afterward. To me it is a big story about nothing. Some minimum wage employees made some bad decisions and then some fake police turned it into a national news story. Then the head of UA made it an even bigger story. And of course the passenger should have been bright enough to leave his seat when airline security came on board. All of it could have been avoided if just 1 employee had been smart enough to offer $1350 they could have. I cannot imagine someone would not have accepted that.

I have had boys ask to stay just because of the heat or rain. They did not want more money but of course the few I agreed to got the standard overnight rate which was probably always their plan.

You are wrong from the reports I saw initially. I may be wrong from the reports you saw. Who cares? The point is the airline can remove passengers and compensate them any time they want. Of course the preferred way is in the boarding area! What they should have done is said this airplane does not move until we get x number of passengers to take our offer . They had the right under guidelines I believe to offer $1300 . I find it hard to believe someone would not have accepted that offer and walked down to Avis and make the 5 hour drive. I certainly would have. I'd volunteer for those injuries for the Millions he will get.

You are wrong from the reports I saw initially on Major news outlets in the USA. Possible they are no better in this instance then Fake News online. Really does not make much difference. The airlines always have the right to remove you for reasons such as transporting crews to that city. I have been on smaller jets where they came on and said weight and balance was off and they needed volunteers to get off the airplane or they can't go. I'm pretty sure in all cases I personally witnessed , people took the offer and volunteered to wait for another flight. But if they had not they would have picked who had to get off. I am in no way commenting that this was not handled horribly but fact is they are in control of the aircraft and if they tell you to get off you get off. It really is that simple. When this individual refused they should have offered so much compensation that someone would have taken it but instead they screwed up and the Captain allowed airport employees ( not police ) to forcibly remove the passenger. Believe me Sully would have never allowed it.

Well the one thing we can agree on is that there are conflicting reports of what actually happened and the sequence of how it happened. Just watched the latest report on NBC and they reported that the Pilots Union came out with reports that they were shocked by the performance of the airport employees. They must be stupid. The Pilot is in full charge of that aircraft and his word is Law. He should have stopped what happened before it occurred and I would be willing to bet if there was a grey haired veteran in the seat it would have never happened. Instead it is likely there was some under 30 pilot trying to build experience so he could get a job with the Big Boys. One of the reasons I have always avoided those small jets especially in weather. I'll take my chances with Pilots like Sully but not green kid with limited experience. Oh and by the way I have a commercial pilots license with an instrument rating so I know a little about at least some of these things.

Point Taken!

I rarely read news on the web. Too much of it is fake. Although not a 100%, I prefer my news from, CNN, NBC, New York Times etc. But I guess unless you were present we'll have to wait for the court case to find out although I bet they will settle long before that.

You keep saying that and you are wrong. They knew they needed the seats and had offered monetary compensation prior to anyone boarding and they had their 4 seats. The Dr took the offer and then decided he wanted his ticket back. This is when the decision went bad. The gate agent should have refused to return his ticket and problem would have been solved. Instead for some strange reason she allowed him to Board . Then they had to try to get someone already on the plane to accept an offer, usually much harder to get and when they did not get a taker they were forced to remove someone. None of this mitigates how the passenger was removed and he will get a big pay day but this is failure by the gate agent plain and simple in allowing the Dr to get on the flight after he had agreed to compensation. You may be right about many crew movements being planned in advance but there are also needs because of sickness, weather delays etc that they need to move crew members to fill in those gaps and at the last minute.

Since I am forced to read my on ignore steveboy, I have to reply to either his stupid or ill informed statement. The 50's Great time 5 million people lost their live in the Korean War. The Soviet Union was in full bloom as was the race for nuclear weapons and the Cold War was enveloping the world. No the 50's were not better. .

It's evident you don't understand the business model of the airline. Here is how Ryanair operates and Easy Jet and all airlines. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3205962/More-2million-passengers-claim-compensation-delayed-flights-Ryanair-loses-legal-battle.html 100,000's of business travelers daily make reservations that can be cancelled without penalty.Airlines of sophisticated programs to analyze how many are likely to cancel each day on each flight. That allows them to constantly sell more tickets then they have seats . Like most computer programs they are not perfect . Thus there are times they must bump people and offer them compensation. 90% of the time enough people accept the offers and flight goes off without a hitch. Sometimes and a tiny % 1/10 of 1% get denied boarding. As far as moving their own employees , again you don't understand how the system works. Airlines constantly have to move pilots and flight attendants to other airports in order to keep the system moving. Without that ability many more times you would be sitting on the ground for hours waiting for part of the crew to arrive. And this thought that European airlines are any better is just not true as you can see from this link and previous link I posted on EasyJet. The only difference is at certain levels the compensation is better in Europe then USA but since all airlines try to get acceptance of an offer prior to denied boarding, these differences just don't effect many people.

First of all it is not a law. You sign your rights away when you click the ok box when you buy the ticket. You agree to all sorts of things that 99.9% of people never read or would understand. The only law is that you are entitled to certain benefits if you are denied boarding because of certain reasons. Not included are weather, mechanical etc. Your choice is walk or sign when you buy the ticket and then know your rights so if it happens to you that you at least get the minimum benefit prescribed. It is very unlikely any of this will ever change as long as customers want low fares.

It comes from the fact that as reported in numerous articles the Dr accepted $800 to give up his seat and subsequently realized he would not get to his destination that night. He then demanded to get on the flight and stupidly they allowed him to take his ticket back and board. Apparently this all went on before the plane was boarded. Technically you may be right that this was not over booking but we don't really know how many people were paid to get off. All we know from reports is that they had 4 employees to get to their destination and they were offering money etc for people to take a later flight. They may have been paying a dozen passengers for all we know. Then again it may have been only 4 . All they had to do was 0ffer $1000-1600 and they would have had plenty of takers. No excuse for this feeder (Republic Airlines) to do what they did and UA is taking the incoming and a few weeks from now the stock will be back up , if it is even down now and the plane will be full again and there will be more and more bumping voluntary and involuntary as summer approaches.

So much over the Top Vitriol. It really is just weird that people don't understand. The airlines have 2 choices. Go bust because only 2/3 of the plane is full or raise the ticket prices by a substantial amount to cover the no shows. Or the 3rd option is no refundable tickets under any circumstances. You think people are squealing today about something that statistically happens to a minute % of passengers . Wait till you see them squeal when prices double or there is no such thing as a refundable ticket. 1/10 of 1% of passengers are denied boarding in the USA. Many times more then that accept the money etc offered to them an thus never end up being denied. There are passenger who buy tickets on the most likely route to be oversold just so they can take the offer and pocket the money while getting to their destination some time later. That in no way justifies what happened to this passenger. But somewhere lost in all the negative articles is the fact that it was not UA airlines but a feeder airline with poorly trained people . Some of the original report had Chicago police pulling the passenger off instead of again poorly trained Civil Aviation Police. Yes this passenger will get a big Payday and I guess he deserves it because of the injuries. But if he had refused the $800 offer to begin with none of this would ever have happened. And anyone who thinks there will be any long term damage to UA is just dreaming . They might have to beat the other airlines fare by $10 for a short time and people will flock to them as they always do for the lowest price. Just ask Ryanair, EasyJet etc.

suggest you go to WWW.gaybuttonthai.com There is a restaurant section which gets quite a few suggestions and since most of them are from ex pats who live there , quite reliable. Not a guarantee but as good as you will get for various parts of Pattaya.

There is essentially no difference. European airlines overbook because they have to in order to stay in business . The rules for compensation are no better in Europe then USA. Here is how EasyJet explains it and of course they constantly overbook and bump passengers as do all European Airlines. http://www.easyjet.com/en/help/at-the-airport/oversales

But of course that is what everyone already does since there are more seats provided by member airlines then UA and of course UA loves it when you don't take their seats for free.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/12/these-airlines-have-the-worst-records-for-bumping-passengers.html Looking at the above you will see the number of people bumped involuntarily is minuscule . In the millions of miles I have flown I have never been bumped. I have been offered compensation if I would give up my seat, said no and they found someone else. So it is only a problem when it is handled badly as it was in this instance. As far as United getting hurt by this, nobody will remember it in a week. Their stock will take a temporary hit and they will be fodder on late night shows and then it will go away. They have already done a poll asking passengers if they were looking for tickets next week , what is their major determination and the answer is always the same price. So if someone looks NYC-LAX and DL is $542 and UA is $521 most passengers who are not FF members etc will always take the lower price other things being equal. It is real simple not to have this happen. Make every ticket non- refundable under any circumstances and there will be no need for overbooking. But of course passengers don't want this. So they buy refundable tickets just in case they might travel on that day. The airlines are in business if they have 150 seat airplane and only 100 people actually fly they are losing money and thus they overbook. None of this excuses how the passenger was treated or the whole situation of allowing people to board was allowed. Good chance it would not have happened if it was a real UA flight rather then a feeder airline .

Look IMHO it was pure incompetence by the gate crew. You never allow people to board the airplane when you know you will ask them to leave. This was not a last minute thing easily seen by the fact they had been offering people increasing amounts of money to give up their seats.Not only that this person had accepted the money and then decided he wanted on the flight. They should have said sorry, you already agreed. If they knew no matter what they had to provide seats to their employees , then they allow the computer to choose the unlucky people or by fare paid or status with airline etc and eliminate their boarding passes. Simple as that , happens every day around the country. If they never get on the airplane , there will be no problem taking them off. I was not paying close attention but I am pretty sure the news reports the day after did not say they were Chicago Police not that it makes any real difference United CEO Oscar Munoz explained the incident by saying gate agents were "left with no choice but to call Chicago Aviation Security Officers" after Dao became "disruptive and belligerent" when asked the leave the flight. Munoz said Dao had raised his voice and refused to leave the aircraft when gate agents told him he had to leave the flight because it was overbooked.

The mistake they made was letting the passenger board. If they were sitting in the waiting area , he would have been out of luck.Once he had accepted the offer they should never have let him change his mind. Take the offer or be at risk for getting bumped. You have no recourse and it is buried in the fine print that you agree to. That is why they make offers to passengers to take a later flight and not have anyone mad at them . If they had to they should have kept raising the offer. Once they let him board they should have made other arrangements for their employees. Of course there is no excuse for how the fake cops at the direction of the airline treated the passenger. It will cost them a lot more then offering $2000 to anyone who would get off the plane .

I agree Jim Thompson home is wonderful just don't let a tuk tuk driver take you shopping when you leave.

No it has been 13 years since I was there.

Great responses for the Newbie . Hope he takes advantage of all the generous responses. I 'm not sure anything was missed?

This makes me chuckle and I believe you . But my only trip to the Soviet Union before it got reduced to Russia was uneventful with customs. They did a quick search of my small carry on and the Guard or whatever came up with 3 Military Medals that I had bought in a Black Market. He looked at them and said in pretty good English , these are not allowed to be taken out of the country and if you do this again they will be confiscated as he put them back in my bag with a big smile. Made a number of business trips after they had been reduced to Russia and don't remember any problems but then again my memory is not what it used to be.

Too Funny except for the fact you keep this Troll alive by responding to him.

I'm not really worried about getting stopped but if was, that does not sound like an intelligent response!